The Badlands are an amazing place. You won’t find many other places that share their unique beauty and history. I remember my first time seeing the Badlands during a family vacation when I was about eight years-old. My brother and I spent some time fighting over the backseat window we thought had the best view of the Badlands Loop Scenic Byway. Even as little kids, we were mesmerized.

This makes it no surprise that the Badlands have been the inspiration for photography, painting and recently the award nominated literary work, The Personal History of Rachel Dupree by Ann Weisgarber.

The Personal History of Rachel Dupree is set in the South Dakota Badlands in 1917. The book’s main character, Rachel, is the pregnant wife of former Buffalo Soldier Isaac Dupree, who has started a ranch on a claim in the Badlands. African American families and ranchers were rare in the West, and even with the shortage of rain and lack of supplies, Isaac is determined to make his ranch succeed. The book follows Rachel’s struggle to provide for her children, her husband and herself while living in an isolated sod house in what was then believed a godforsaken land.

Ann Weisgarber, originally from Ohio and now residing in Texas, was motivated to write her novel after she and her husband took a camping trip to the Badlands and visited the Prairie Homestead. The character of Rachel was inspired when Weisgarber saw a photograph of an African American woman sitting in front of a dugout. After she submitted the first chapter of her book to the National Park Service, she received a four-week writing residency and lived in a ranger’s cabin at Badlands National Park. The novel took Weisgarber seven years to complete.

You should probably keep The Personal History of Rachel Dupree on your booklist. Weisgarber’s book has been nominated for the UK’s Orange Award for New Writers and the Orange Prize for Fiction. The book has also been listed as a finalist for the Steven Turner Award for Best Work of First Fiction. To find out more about Ann Weisgarber and her novel (and to even see an excerpt from the first chapter) take a look at her official website.

You can take a look at some of her reviews too….
Writers Write
Guardian.co.uk
Macmillan New Writers